But if your "objections are story-based" as you say, I think you shouldn't care whether or not you get the canon party in BG2, let alone finding a far-fetched (no offense intended) reason. Mind you, I am too trying to be story-oriented, but since we're talking about a game, I'd expect more freedom and less linearity for the player.
But this isn't an issue of freedom vs. linearity. What you're suggesting is the addition of twenty-odd playable characters to BG2, each with the same amount of content and interactions (because it wouldn't be fair to bring in the party you may have used and not, say, another player who used Tiax, Quayle, Xzar, Eldoth and Yeslick).
Setting aside the mechanical issues - a party with Keldorn and Ajantis/Kagain and Korgan would be rather overpowered - you'd have to strip out every BG1 NPC encounter in BG2, since this isn't "Mass Effect" and the game engine isn't capable of calculating all the variable actions you can take. So Safana doesn't trick Coran into double-crossing you, and Tiax doesn't get locked up in Spellhold, and Quayle doesn't raise Aerie.
I guess we can agree to disagree as this is getting redundant. Best case scenario for me would be a DLC, then let people get what they want.
Well, you know what they say about people getting what they want. To me, this feels like an extension of the request to make BG3 a continuation of the Bhaalspawn Saga - sometimes stories are served better by being allowed to end. The BG1 companions are an interesting and eclectic bunch, but I'm okay with the idea that their adventures with your protagonist are finite, and that you get to make a whole bunch of new friends in the next game.
I'm not troubled that we're limited to Imoen, Jaheira, and Minsc from BG1 to BG2 for the main reason you stated. (I don't entirely agree with the observation about BG3, as I would love to see a prequel. But that's a different discussion.)
They have enough trouble making that work in modern games. Take the Mass Effect franchise, you only had Tali and Garrus carrying over from ME1 to 2 (leaving out Ashley/Kaiden, Wrex and Liara), and from that game only Tali and Garrus carry over into the 3rd one. I know you get Ashely/Kaiden and Liara back but thats a grand total of two squad npcs that you take over.
I think the problem comes, especially when you have many NPCs like you have in Badlur's gate it starts to get exponentially mroe difficult to write bespoke beginnings when they can be drawn from a prohibitively large number of possible combinations.
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I think the problem comes, especially when you have many NPCs like you have in Badlur's gate it starts to get exponentially mroe difficult to write bespoke beginnings when they can be drawn from a prohibitively large number of possible combinations.